“ ‘Oh! where, Kincora, is Brian the great,
Where is the beauty that once was thine,
Where are the princes and nobles that sate
To feast in thine halls and drink the red wine?’
he could not see that the change would be politically deleterious. They could not make a Scotsman into a better engineer by confiscating his heirloom; and their language was an heirloom of the Irish. Its usefulness was not immediately obvious; but that was true of most household gods, and yet a tutelary reverence for household gods had often nerved heart and hand for utilitarian contests. There was no heresy to the Union in permitting to Ireland that which they promoted in Scotland and in Wales; on the contrary, it was an article of the Unionist creed that within the ambit of the Empire there should be room for the coöperation of races, maintaining each its memory of its own past as a point of departure for converging assaults on the problems of the future.”
There can be no doubt but that the chief secretary for Ireland has been baptized with the spirit of the Irish revival. He believes in Ireland. He loves the Irish people. To him the witty and mercurial Celt is much more sympathetic than the more stolid Englishman. Ireland, like the fair damozel in Spenser’s poem, has a singular fascination for the Sir Calidores and Sir Artegalds who stray within range of the magic of her charms.
As to what were the real beginnings of Ireland, and whence came the original Celt, we must for a time longer, it seems, remain in doubt. The more the pity, for the character of a people is in large measure due to inheritance. Here, for centuries long gone past, there was isolation in manners, customs, and forms of government. But then, Ireland being insular, the chances were that many people of a different race might have mixed their blood with that of the early settlers. Still, there never was a country which delighted more in legends and of which the past was more legendary. And, above all, the Irishman always respects these antiquated stories, whether authenticated by later scholarship or not.
